


Separation Anxiety

by Wallwalker



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: bucketlist, Consent Issues, F/M, Ownership, Past Abuse, Pets, Platonic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:14:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy finds out that love doesn't conquer all of the problems inherent in owning and caring for her new pet. (It does, however, help.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separation Anxiety

As you pick your way through the living room, stepping over the shredded remains of your favorite book and kicking aside some fluff from a pillow you'd _just_ bought to replace the last one, you decide that you've very nearly had enough of this.

It's not that you expected owning a troll to be easy. All of the owners on the memos you frequent told you that it could be fun and rewarding, but that you had to be careful with them, treat them well and make absolutely sure that they knew you _cared_ about them all the time, one way or the other. They didn't have to like you, but they had to know you felt something about them, or else they'd just get moody and then really bad things could happen. They'd stressed that you especially had to be careful with the ones you found at the society shelters, because they'd usually been through several owners who hadn't cared. And you'd taken all of that to heart and decided that you were going to be careful - maybe try to find one of those _adorable_ little grubs, or even a cute purple seadweller slug that you could keep in the pool in the back yard. It's not as if you ever use it; you're a thousand miles away from most of your friends, since Janey had to up and move for her new job. Somebody might as well get some use out of it! Sure, you'd have to find the right mix to fill it with, and cover it when it rained, but hey, you're getting good money for your tech skills, so why not use it?

And then you saw Gamzee, almost too tall for his room and happily fingerpainting on his walls, and you finally knew what troll owners mean when they say that they fell in love. It's not quite like falling in love with a human - you've done that a couple of times before, or thought you did, and it's kind of like losing control, which is something you don't particularly enjoy doing unless booze is involved. Really, the only time it ever felt _right_ was with Janey, but she's your best friend and now she's living halfway across the country and probably about to be one of the richest and most powerful women in the entire _world,_ so you're not sure telling her would do any good now. 

But that's another story. This story is about you and Gamzee. And with him it was just complete serendipity, or at least that's what you thought at first. You went in hoping to look at grubs, and they said that first they'd like you to look at the older trolls, the ones who had a bunch of sweeps on them and still didn't have anyone, okay? And you said sure, fine, expecting to see a bunch of sad-faced teenagers with surly frowns and eyes just beginning to change color. Not that you didn't understand - they wanted to get rid of the older ones before someone decided there was something wrong with them, and they ended up culled - but you just wanted to get it _over_ with, so that you could see the adorable little grubs with their waggily antenna, and pick out the prettiest one.

And that was when you saw him for the first time, face painted up almost as much as his walls, a big clownish smile on his face, looking back at you over his shoulder and just beaming at how you admired his work. That was when you knew that you had to have him. You just had to take him home and get him a room where he could paint on his walls to his heart's content. He was just so goofy, so _adorable._ You agreed to take him home right then and there.

The agency gave you a bunch of paperwork to sign (that you didn't really read) and a history of his life (which you took but figured you'd look at it later, because really, he was so sweet and there couldn't possibly be any problems, could there?) You had to deal with all of that before they let him out, hands tied up in the usual harness so that he couldn't cause any trouble before you got him home, wearing an indigo collar with shiny new tags. It had his name on it; they'd told you the name that his first owner had given him, and you had thought it was as cute as the rest of him, so you kept it. You'd let him keep his makeup, too. 

He didn't say much as you drove him back home, until the very end - you had him harnessed in the back seat so that he couldn't do anything, couldn't move around too much. You've heard horror stories about new troll owners nearly crashing because their new pets kept moving around and clawing at the windows to try to escape. Some of them really hated cars; the scientists said it reminded them too much of the culling pods back home. 

"Hey," he said as she was about to pull onto her street.

You grinned back at him. "Hi there, Gamzee," you answered. "You got something on your mind?"

"Not much, 'less you up and motherfuckin' count these miracle horns of mine," he said, his voice loopy and high and a bit rusty. He must not've talked much to the other trolls in the society's shelter.

Roxy laughed. "I knew I'd like you," she said.

"Huh," he said. "That mean this is for real? You're really gonna up and motherfuckin' take care of me?"

"Yes, Gamzee. Nothing's going to happen to you while _I'm_ around. You're going to have your very own room and all the paint you want."

"Wow," he said, grinning. "How about Faygo? Any sweet Faygo up in there?"

"I'll buy some for you!" you answered. So that's why they keep stocking soda in pet stores! It's all starting to come together now. "Whatever flavor you want."

"Fuckin' beautiful," he said with a lazy grin. He was tall, almost too tall for your car - his horns were scraping the lining of the roof, and you were afraid he'd scratch them if he tried to move too much, but so far he'd been good about it - which meant that he had to slouch forward a lot - but even then he looked like he was the most comfortable troll in the world. "You're a fuckin' miracle, you know that? All kinds of motherfuckin' miracles all up in here."

You'll have to get him to watch his mouth in public if you want to take him out, or only take him to places where you're sure it won't be a problem. But that's a little thing, and you'll handle it later. "We have all _kinds_ of miracles at my place," you say brightly. "It'll be great!"

"Aw, yeah. I can't motherfucking _wait._ "

\---

That had been months ago, and you've already had to replace five different pieces of furniture. Five! You make good money, but not _that_ good. You can't afford to buy five tasteful pieces of home decor in three months; you're having to make do with a temporary loveseat for a while, because really, who cares about the loveseat? Well, you do, obviously, but it's hardly ever used, so it's easy enough to hide under sheeting for a while until you can get a proper replacement.

It's not just the furniture, either. Gamzee's been acting up for a little over two months now, and he always ends up doing it when you're not there to watch him. You can't lock him anywhere, because he's strong enough to break the locks - or the doors, whichever give first, so he just goes where he pleases. You buy him toys and games to play but nothing _helps._ He's shredded and painted in your favorite books, eaten you out of house and home, and left Faygo spilled all over the carpet. You try to keep it clean, but it's starting to stain a little and it's bothering you. You're lucky that Frigglish is gone, or else Gamzee would've terrorized him too, or worse! 

It's just really weird! When you're home, he's completely different from what he used to be, a sweet and diffident little guy who never talks above a whisper; he still fingerpaints, but he never talks about miracles anymore, and his creations are nowhere near as bright and colorful as they were back in the shelter. When you're not... well, you tried hiring a professional troll-sitter before to watch the house while you worked and try to keep Gamzee calm. What ended up happening was that the man came out as soon as you pulled into the garage, slightly clawed and bruised, and told you that you needed to keep _anything_ even remotely club-like out of the house, and that your troll had the worst damned case of separation anxiety that he'd ever seen and he felt really damn sorry for you.

You gave him extra, of course. You didn't want him reporting anything to the society; they could be such hard-asses sometimes. And you haven't gotten any new calls from them, so apparently he's kept quiet. That's good news, at least.

Separation anxiety. You turn the phrase over and over in your head as you hunt for Gamzee. You've heard it before - you've owned cats before, used to take care of quite a few of them, although Frigglish was the only one you really considered yours before his tragic death. The others were mostly foster cases, and you at least managed to get most of them good homes before you moved. But they'd all had each other, so it hadn't been nearly as bad. It's different with Gamzee; if he'd just needed company he would've been fine with the pet-sitter. It seems like it's _you_ that he wants with him.

You find him crouching in a currently untouched corner of his painting room, head in his hands. He's still shaking, which means that he's not nearly as contrite as he looks - if anything he's panicking over what he's done and whether or not you'll still want him there. It's happening so much lately, and you're so tired of this. You had a moment of wanting to kick him out, or to take him back to the shelter, when you first came in, but that's passed, now; you know you don't want him to go. You still think he's adorable, although you do miss how he was before; right now you just want to cuddle him and pet him and make him feel better. Later on you can try to figure out why this keeps happening. 

You walk over to him very slowly - you know from past experience he might lash out if you're not careful - and gently pap him on the top of his head. "Gamzee," you say, "are you okay?"

"I messed up again," he says, voice wobbling. "I went off and messed everything up and I'm so sorry -"

"Shhh," she said. "Shh, shoosh. Don't cry anymore, okay? Don't cry."

He nods and doesn't say anything else, just sits there all curled up, and you're just... so sorry for the poor bastard that you don't know if you can think straight. You have to figure out a way to fix this, though, or else you're not going to be able to afford to keep him. There has to be something you can do. 

You'll call the society tomorrow. They have to have dealt with this before, right? But for now you have to get him calmed down. Hopefully it won't take too long this time, and you can put him to bed in his slime-filled little pod, and you can get this mess cleaned up and get some sleep. 

Oh, and a stiff drink. Or two. That needs to be in there _somewhere._

 

\---

You're awfully glad the society is open on Saturday, at least for a little while. You don't have to try to call them from work, wondering what Gamzee's destroyed this time. It would be so much easier to contain if you could keep him in his room, or even in his coccoon, but he's too good at breaking down doors to risk it, and... well, locking him in the tiny sleeping space feels so cruel! You've been told that some trolls are cocoon-trained - some people say it's actually healthier to do that, because they actually like small spaces - but you can't bear to do that to Gamzee.

Even so, you've been kept on hold for a very long time, and it's stupid how many people must be calling them first thing Saturday morning! It's not unusual, though, from what you've heard. The society isn't a very popular organization, and they apparently get a lot of hate mail and prank calls. There are a lot of people out there who think that after what the trolls tried to do to humans, being studied and kept as pets and whatever is too good for them - even the little troll-owner forums that you frequent get a lot of trolls! But the society keeps going on about research opportunities and the trolls' fascinating social structure and whatnot, and apparently the powers that be still agree with them enough to allow the compromise to keep going, for now.

A lot of them are probably culling requests, too. It's sad, but after some of the stories you've read you can understand why some of them _have_ to be culled. You just hope you can help Gamzee before he's that far gone.

After what feels like forever the music stops, and a perky voice answers the phone. "Good morning, you've reached the Trollian Preservation and Research Society, how can I help you?"

"Yes, hello there!" Whoever this is sounds far too cheerful to be a real person. You wonder if it belongs to an AR. If it is a robot, well, its programing had better be up to date. You hate dealing with the ones that aren't. "My name is Roxy Lalonde and I adopted a troll from your shelter a few months ago - oh, where is that number?" You rummage around a bit in your purse. "Ah!" Finally you pull out a scrap of paper, reading off the half-faded numbers. 

"One moment..." There's a pause. Either it is a human, or an AR programmed to pause for as long as a human would. Dirk couldn't have done a better programming job, and that's saying something. "Yes, we have your information here, Ms. Lalonde. This call is relating to Gamzee, indigo-blood, six sweeps old, correct?"

"Yes, that's right." Six sweeps? You'd forgotten he was _that_ old! That was nearly a teenager!

"Has he posed a physical danger to yourself or to any other human?"

You guiltily quash the memory of the pet-sitter. "No," you say, "he's just being very destructive of my property. I think it might be separation anxiety."

The voice paused. "What are the outward signs of his anxiety?"

"Well, he's torn up a lot of my furniture and books, and when I'm home he just huddles in the corner. It's like he knows he's done something wrong, but when I'm not here he can't stop himself -"

"Hmm." The voice interrupts you. "Yes, this does sound like separation anxiety. Let me look at Gamzee's records. Please hold." 

Again? You're about ready to throw something across the room! You don't, though, if only because it would wake Gamzee. "Yes, thank you." 

More music. When it stops again the voice has changed to a timid-sounding young woman. "Um, thank you for waiting, Ms. Lalonde. Um. You were asking for information on Gamzee?"

"Yes, I want to know why he's destroying my house! I do my best to take care of him, but he keeps damaging everything!"

"Yes, er, we believe that it's partially due to a personality change brought on by sopor withdrawal."

"Sopor... what?" you echo. "But he sleeps every night in a whole tank of the stuff!"

"Yes, well... cooking it changes its chemical makeup and has a very strong psychoactive effect. Our bloodwork indicated that he was given high dosages of cooked sopor for an extended period of time before he was captured and taken back to the shelter."

You gape. "But he was fine when I first brought him here! Didn't you clear him for adoption?"

"Being drugged for that long causes personality changes that take some time to fade," the representative answered timidly. "It was all in the liability release paperwork and consents to research that you signed, Ms. Lalonde. I have records of it here, with your signature."

"That's not the point!" you snap, mostly to cover your embarrassment over the fact that you weren't really paying attention at that point; you were just getting through it as quickly as possible so that you could take Gamzee home. 

"Well, um, since you signed the release of liability, we can't be held responsible for any damage. But we can send you over some information, um, on how to best deal with the syndrome. And you should probably check his history again and see if there are any triggers for his, um, his destructive behavior -"

"Yeah," you say, resting your head in your hand. " _Fine._ Send the information to my account address, it's still good."

"Yes, Ms. Lalonde, we will. Um, I'm awfully sorry about this!"

"It's fine," you say, a bit nettled. You can't help yourself, though; under your breath you find yourself muttering. "I liked the AR better," you say.

"Um, Ms. Lalonde, I _am_ a -"

You roll your eyes and hang up before she can finish.

Sopor withdrawal? Really? You guess you had best read those documents that you've ignored for three months, if you can even find them. You think you know where they are, anyway, somewhere in that drawer you reserve for important things. 

\---

You find the packet of documents after a while, although it's a bit dicey; it had somehow gotten shuffled under a couple years' worth of tax forms and a couple of citations for public intoxication. They gave you your pet's history in a big plain manilla envelope, when it's starting to seem to you that they should have given it to you in a flashing neon red folder with the words "READ ME" written in lime green glitterpen. Not that you would've read it anyway, but at least you might've figured out it was important, and to ignore it at your own risk. And boy, did you ever - maybe if you'd read this earlier your furniture could've been spared.

The notation about the drugging is, in fact, in there, along with a lot of other things. There's a few pages about his old owner, an old fisherman who took Gamzee out on the ocean in his fishing boat and took care of him. Apparently he'd been birthed by a feral Mother Grub - probably set free with a group of trolls by a well-meaning owner who'd thought that they should be allowed to live free, and who hadn't properly processed the idea that unidentified trolls were usually culled on sight and that identification records were deleted when they were declared permanently lost. The feral children never lasted long, anyway; by the time the old man had found him, most of the others had already died of exposure, and the indigoblood grub was the only one left alive. He'd taken the little guy in, had him registered with the society, and took care of him until he fell ill and died. His family hadn't been interested in keeping a troll, and he'd declined too quickly to make arrangements for Gamzee's care. It was all very sad, you think, what happened to him; you've read that trolls bond to their first caretaker very strongly. That man was practically his father.

Then you turn to the pages about his second owner, the man who rescued him from the shelter after the society reclaimed him, and start reading. 

In a few minutes, your blood is practically boiling, and you have to take a break and mix yourself a very dry martini just to get through it. If there hadn't been a note near the end that the man was already dead, well, you'd probably go out there and kill him yourself out of sheer rage. You're barely a troll-owner at all, you've only had one and that was for a few months, and you're still so mad at the guy that if you could get a bead on his skull you'd probably shoot him anyway, even it was just a skull...

You hear a faint honk behind you - the bike-horn you'd bought for your pet in the hopes that he'd destroy them instead of your house, not that it ever helped - and turn around, trying to compose yourself. Gamzee is standing there behind you, dressed only in a pair of boxers with hand-painted smiley-faces on them - your favorites, and you definitely notice that. He looks so forlorn without his makeup, his mouth too small for his face. "Hi," he says, voice quiet all over again. 

"Hey, sweetie," you say. "What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?"

He shook his head. "I just wanted to try to mo- to make things right," he said, voice rasping. "I know I've been up and doing a lot of horrible things lately."

"Gamzee, I -"

"Naw," he says, interrupting you. "I'm a - a bad troll. And I don't quite know how but I wanna make it _up_ to you somehow, wanna paint a kick-ass picture or something. Something that'll make you smile. You've been so good to me, and I -"

You get up and shoosh him, in a hurry. "Shhh," you say, rubbing his back and looking up at him - it's hard to reconcile him being so tall with these childish moods of his, but you're starting to get used to it. "I'm thinking that we can just talk for a while, okay? That would make me feel better."

"Yeah, sure," he says, with a small closed-mouth grin. "I'm a great listener -"

You shake your head. "I know," you said, "which is why I think it's _my_ turn to listen for a while."

"Your turn?" he says, cocking his head to the side, confused.

"Yeah." You smile, put your hands on his shoulders. "I mean, you never talk about yourself, Gamzee! Maybe I wanna know a little more about you. That's not weird, is it?"

"It ain't something anyone's asked me before," he says, frowning. "I mean, the people at the shelter up and said everything was in that little folder, and I didn't have to tell nobody anything because I didn't want to up and scare 'em away."

"Well, that's over now, right? Because I have you now, and I'm not going to get rid of you." You would've done it after the second destroyed chair, you think to yourself, but you're afraid saying it would hurt his feelings and that's not what you're trying to do here. "So you can go ahead and tell me about your life, and I won't be scared away. I'd be happy you told me, in fact."

"Huh." He smiled a little bit wider - you can see the edges of sharp teeth. "So... I can up and tell you anything? You ain't joking with me and you ain't gonna get mad?"

"Sure ain't!" You hold up your martini glass, even though you're pretty sure he won't get the joke. "Souse's honor."

He actually laughs a little at that, if only because he apparently notices that you're joking and figures that he ought to do something. "Well, ain't that a miraculous thing," he says. "All right. But lemme up and get some proper clothes on, if that's okay? A brother can get real cold in here." 

The thought of why he was coming out to talk to you in his boxers in the first place crosses your mind, and you ignore it. You two have some important conversations to have. "Okay," you say. "I'll meet you in the parlor when you get changed. Oh, and Gamzee - you can swear as much as you want when it's just you and me, okay? I can guarantee you I've heard worse."

"Sounds like a motherfucking sweet plan," he says, and almost laughs.

\---

You spend the rest of the day relaxing in the parlor - which you love calling it that, because it makes the fact that you spend most of your downtime there lounging around in your pink kitty PJs even more hilarious - with Gamzee in a pair of clown pants and a t-shirt finger-painted with one of his silly symbols. He's more relaxed than you've seen him in years, as he sits down and talks about the mellow old man, the first guy he ever remembered seeing.

"Those were good times," he said once, "just up and motherfuckin' good times, the old man and me. He'd take me out to sea in his little boat and fish and just talk to me 'bout just about everythin', and we'd go back and clean his fish and eat. Didn't go to the city much - old guy said he didn't much care for those motherfuckers in their safe little houses, talkin' about whatever motherfuckin' bullshit the man told 'em to think. Whoever the fuck that man was, he just didn't care about whatever he fuckin' said. Just stayed out and grew his own plants in his house and made these awesome-looking motherfucking cigars that he'd never lemme touch."

Well, you think privately, that explains a lot. Hopefully he'd never mentioned that detail to the Society. "He took good care of you, huh?"

"Oh, yeah, he was a motherfucking awesome guy. Taught me how to paint an' everything. Motherfucker loved to watch me paint," he says with a huge grin on his face, sloshing his martini onto his shirt. 

You wince slightly - you do hate to see perfectly good alcohol go to waste! "Gamzee, dear," you object. "Your drink!"

"Oh, yeah," he says, and grins sheepishly. You figured that the drinks might help him loosen up - you've heard that trolls don't have much of a tolerance, but that it's safe enough as long as you don't give them too much. "Sorry. Didn't mean to up and motherfuckin' waste your stuff."

"Oh, it's all right," you say, as friendly as possible. "I'll mix a new one if you'd like."

"Naw," he says, shaking his head. "You want me to be motherfuckin' honest, I ain't too fond of this stuff. These green things are pretty motherfuckin' tasty, though."

"The olives?" You blink, then grin at him. "I've got a whole jar of those in the fridge! Just give me a second...."

By sunset you're on your third drink, and Gamzee is halfway through the enormous jar. He's gone through a lot of stories about the old man, but now he's quieter, like he's not sure what else he's got to say - like he's gone through all of the good memories, and the bad ones are really starting to get to him, and he's not sure what to do. You don't want to push him - you've made a promising start, anyway. 

Later, when he's asleep, you go out and buy the biggest jar of olives you can find. You have the distinct feeling you're going to need them.

\---

It's Sunday afternoon when the last few stories about the old man finally run dry.

"So there I was," he was saying, "playin' out by the water, paintin' up a storm for the old man, an' then these two guys... they're comin' up the road in one of their big black vehicles. Comin' up to me, all up and askin' where my owner was. I told 'em he was in there, and he was tired, and he'd told me to paint him the best motherfuckin' painting I've ever done. They weren't listenin' though." He sighed a bit, closed his eyes. "They went in and came back out and said the old man was motherfuckin' gone, and I had to come back with 'em...."

He falls silent. You put a hand on his shoulder - he really loves it when you touch him, and you wonder if all trolls like it so much - and he leans back, eyes staring up at the ceiling. "You can go on if you want to," you say quietly. "You don't have to."

"Ain't much to say," he said. "I mean... it ain't easy to just up and talk about."

"Will it make you feel better to try?" You try to smile at him. "I promise I won't make you do it, but if you want to... I'm here."

He looks at back at you - he's still not wearing makeup, and his eyes are shot through with indigo streaks. Maybe you need to check the sopor in his tank. "Promise you won't take me back there," he says, very quiet. "I know I've fucked up a lot, but I -"

"Gamzee." You gently reach out and pap him on his cheek, then pull his head into your lap - the horns are a little uncomfortable, but you don't mind. "Whatever happened to you _wasn't your fault._ I believe that, okay? So nothing you tell me will make me feel worse about you." Your voice hardens a little bit. "Although it might make me wish I could bring that creep back to life so that I could put a few more holes in him."

"Heh." He smiled just a little bit. "You ain't gotta worry 'bout that, miracle sister," he said, slowly and a bit sleepily. "The mirthful messiahs went and decreed that he deserved a bad death, an' the motherfucking universe up and agreed."

He's never mentioned anything about mirthful messiahs before. You file it away for future research. "Good." 

It takes a few more minutes of quiet and another half-dozen olives before the whole story comes out. "I went back to the shelter," he said, staring off into space. "Took a little while, but some big motherfucker came by and took out a couple of us, includin' me. Didn't talk much, but I guess they didn't really care too much. Said I was gettin' old enough they weren't gonna ask too many questions.

"He took me home in a big van with the others. Said we'd never have to up and motherfuckin' go back to the society, or the research colonies. Said that as long as we did what he said, we'd have fun." I guess," he says, after a lot of long silent contemplation, "that first thing I remember 'bout it is when he took me home. Said I'd never have to motherfuckin' go back to the research colonies, never have to be sent away. All we had ta do was what he said for us to do.

"He took us to this big house, and... well. There were an awful motherfuckin' lot of trolls down there," he said, his eyes very far away. "They kept us penned up, didn't feed us right. Heard some of 'em beggin' for more, and then he'd up and take 'em upstairs, and I never motherfuckin' saw 'em again."

You don't say anything. Nothing you say feels like enough right now. You just rub his arm and wait for him to talk. 

"It was..." He looks so broken, so much smaller now. "It hurt, okay? It motherfuckin' hurt. I was... he made me mad and trained me, gave me clubs and put me up in that motherfuckin' arena that was full of all kinds of motherfuckin' blood stains, and he made me fight other trolls. Only fed me if I killed someone. It was motherfuckin' brutal. I had to be the best at killing, I had to be motherfuckin' angry all the time, full on murder mode day in and day out... you couldn't have gotten too close to me or I would've up and torn out your throat." 

"Is that what happened to him? Did you -"

He laughed bitterly. "No. No, it wasn't me. Wish it had been, but the messiahs had another plan. Guess I can't go an' complain to 'em, huh? Not after what happened to him."

You nod and give him another olive; he takes it, slowly, and nibbles the pimento out of it before he goes on.

"So he gave us these motherfuckin' decoys sometimes when we did good," he starts slowly, eyes tightly shut. "He called 'em baiting trolls. Dunno where he motherfuckin' got 'em, and I don't motherfuckin' wanna think about it. The way they stared at us when we..." He falters and stops, pops the rest of the olive in his mouth and chews it to mush before he composes himself well enough to go on. "We were supposed to use 'em for practice, right? The people who watched us liked it when we killed each other with motherfuckin' style, so we were supposed to kill the easy ones so that we could do it better in a real fight. He'd let us eat 'em, too, and... well, sometimes I couldn't motherfucking _help_ myself, I was so motherfucking _hungry._ So... one day I'm in the ring with this kid, okay? Real short guy with long horns, had the sweetest face I've ever seen in my fucking life, and he's got his fists up while I'm holding my clubs but you can see he's motherfucking scared shitless. And, y'know, I just couldn't fucking do it. I just... threw down my clubs and turned away. And he just stops, and then I hear him hobble closer to me...." Gamzee sniffled a little. "Sweet little bro puts his hand on my shoulder and says that he's sorry they hurt me so much like that, he's real sorry. A few motherfucking seconds ago I'm about to crack his skull, and all he can say is _he's_ motherfucking sorry they hurt _me!_ You believe that?"

You can't say much to that. All you can do is nod. You've heard of stuff like this happening with trolls, part of that social structure the scientists keep talking about, different sorts of relationship patterns that they followed that differed from human patterns. The sociologists and psychologists went crazy for stuff like this.

"After that, well, I was so motherfucking flushed you could see the red right through my paint, man, I'm not even motherfucking lying. I just took that sweet little kid and hugged him and I wouldn't let him go, even when the sonofabitch tried to take him away. Yelled at me for not killin' him and I didn't fucking care, nobody was gonna hurt him, not while I was around. That kid, he was a motherfucking miracle, you know? I just wanted to grab onto him and keep him safe, thought that it wouldn't be so bad if he stayed with me." His laugh was like nails on a chalkboard now, or like a bike horn scraping against the road. "I was so motherfucking stupid. Guy figured it out, used him like he used food with the other kids. Motherfucking kept him separated from me until I had a good fight, then shoved us in the same pen for a while. No motherfucking privacy, but I didn't care, I was just so glad to be with him."

"What happened to him?" you ask. "I could try and find -"

"No. No, you motherfucking _can't._ " Gamzee grimaced, his eyes squeezed shut. "He's motherfucking dead, my motherfucking little _miracle -_ "

"Gamzee," you say, alarmed, reaching out - but he claws at you and you barely pull it away in time. "Gamzee, please," you say.

"He's motherfucking _dead,_ " he repeats. "Another troll he picked up, a blueblood, real mean lady, decided she wanted some time with my little miracle. Tried to fuck with his mind so that he'd go, but I wasn't gonna up and let my best thing go. I knew what she was motherfucking doing, I could feel it, even though she couldn't get to me..." He grinned a nasty, scary grin. "So I motherfuckin' up and did her back. Send her chucklevoodoos the sopor couldn't do a motherfucking thing about. Made her real mad.

"So instead of fighting me back, she...." He choked up, His voice was starting to go down again under your relentless shooshes, but it's nowhere near back to anything resembling normal. "Next time the big man let him out an' away from me, she took control of his mind. Made him throw himself off of the wall around the arena until he finally landed wrong, and the big guy didn't do a thing, even when I started screaming for him to make her _stop,_ an' then my poor little bro couldn't motherfucking up and move his motherfucking _legs_ , so the big guy took him away. Said he was gonna have him... destroyed." He jumps up fast enough that you can't stop him, pushes you to the side and starts _pacing._ He's making this weird noise, almost like he's crying now.

"It's okay, Gamzee. It's okay -"

"He was gonna motherfucking _destroy_ him! Like he was fucking nothing!" He's screaming now. "I snapped. I motherfuckin' snapped. I don't remember a motherfucking thing, 'cept he was draggin' me away at the end, and that _bitch_ was bleedin' at my feet, her arm beat to a motherfuckin' pulp, and if he hadn't grabbed me I wouda done the same to him. Why the motherfucking fuck would they do that? Why would anyone motherfucking hurt a guy like him? Why?" That noise isn't crying, you realize then. It's something else, because now it's a hell of a lot louder now and he isn't crying. His eyes are bulging out, his fists are balled up, his mouth twitching hard. "Why?" he's screaming, now. "Why the fuck are you people doing this shit to us!?"

You jump to the side just in time to avoid a hell of a sucker punch. Fist goes pretty deep into the sofa, tears through upholstery, comes out full of fluff. He spins around again, slashes at the poor abused loveseat with a handful of claws. It goes through the cover like it's made of fucking butter. 

Gamzee's shaking so hard you can see it, and his teeth are practically digging into his lips. It's amazing he hasn't bitten _through_ 'em yet. "We didn't motherfuckin' do anything wrong," he's yowling. "It wasn't our motherfucking fault! Some motherfucking warmongers decided to do a motherfucking terrible thing 'fore we were even born, and you treat us all like monsters! Is that fair!? How is that motherfucking fair?"

"It's not," you say, although there's a pang of guilt behind it - you think of Janey, crying her eyes out and clutching a photo of her granddad, and letting you hug her for the first time in forever. But you can't help it. You can't think about that right now - all you can think about is getting this guy calmed down. "It's not fair, Gamzee, it's not, let me _help_ you -"

"Motherfuckin' liars!" He reached for her, grabbed her arm hard. "You're all a bunch of motherfuckin' liars! The messiahs are gonna come down, gonna up and come down and motherfuckin' bring you to the big dark carnival, and you motherfuckin' liars are gonna pay!"

You've got a split second. You can break free, you can push him back, you can risk gettin' a face full of those razor-sharp claws. You can kick at him but you wouldn't know where to kick him, it was all in that writing, and you've only just read the first few basics. You weren't expecting him to go completely _apeshit_ on you -

You pull back and yank back as hard as you can. It throws him off, and he honks even more loudly as you both fall back onto the sofa, barely missing the hole in the cushion, him curled up in her lap. The two of you are tangled up together, and he's let go of your hand, and you could punch him out and leave him, talk to him later when he's calmed down.

You're not going to do that, though. You could, but that doesn't mean you _can._ Instead you bend down, kiss him on the back of the head, stroke his hair. "It's okay," she said. "I know it's not fair, I know. I'm sorry, honey, I'm so sorry -"

"I never wanted to hurt anybody," he says, voice muffled by the couch cushion. "I didn't. I didn't wanna."

"I know, honey," you say. "I'm here now and I'm never gonna make you hurt anyone again."

"Never?" he says. He reaches out, takes your hand. "Never?"

"Never," she says. "I promise."

He's still honking when he's curled up in your lap, and you're pretty sure he's crying too. So you stroke his hair, and you hug him as he cries, and when you feel his claws against your arm because he's holding you too tightly you don't complain. When you pick him up and carry him to his pod, he doesn't say anything, just holds your hand after you put him in, until he falls asleep.

It's horrible, you know, but all you can think after the worst of it is over is that the worst of the damage, thank goodness, is on the loveseat.

\---

Monday morning, first thing you do is leave a message on your boss's voicemail. It's early - two hours before your usual day starts, to the minute - which should satisfy his anal streak. The message is to the point - you've got shit to take care of, you'll be there a few hours late, and if he doesn't like it he'll just have to suck it up and deal.

You don't use those words, of course. You're good at what you do, but you aren't THAT good. You're not irreplacable, and you've been told more than once that if you don't watch what you say you're going to be _very_ replacable. Still, as long as you let him know in advance and make up the time later in the week, and as long as you're okay with telling him what happens if he asks (which he never does,) he'll let you have a couple of hours to yourself once in a while. And this won't take long.

The day's not bad, you figure as you walk out. Sky's not quite as dark as usual, although still dark enough that it wouldn't do Gamzee much harm. You leave the sports car in the garage and go for the van, folding down the seats; you're going to need the room. And some help loading the cargo up and getting it out, but you've got that covered.

You get going. Wouldn't do to take too long; after the night you guys just had, you'd at least like to be there with Gamzee when he wakes up.  
\---

Gamzee's stirring by the time you arrive home, sleepily stretching in his tank of green stuff. He looks up at you with sleepy eyes as soon as you walk in. "Hey," he says, although he doesn't quite smile. He looks nervous, truth be told.

"Morning, hon," you say. "Soon as you wake up, can you help me with something?" 

"What's goin' on?" he asks. stretching. 

"Nothing much! I just need your help getting something out of the van."

"Sure," he says, and pulls himself out of the tank. The slime falls away from him fairly quickly, but you're still going to have to take care of those clothes. "Just lemme get up and changed and get my motherfucking grub on."

"Got it! Here, I'll bring you some breakfast." You leave him to get undressed and washed off, and grab him a couple of bowls, one half-full with the olives you have left from last night and the other filled to the brim with his favorite sparkly marshmallow cereal. He's already got a bottle or two of Faygo in there, so that's covered, at least.

You get back in just as he's pulled on another pair of PJ pants - you can't get over how skinny he is, how wiry. He's all muscle and scar, every bit of him, and even though he eats like a pig he never seems to gain any weight. Troll metabolism sure is weird. 

As soon as he finishes downing the half-full bottle of Faygo and gulping down both of his breakfast bowls, you tap him - gently - on the shoulder. "Okay," she says. "Mind helping a sister out real quick?"

"Sure," he says. His voice is still quiet, but not nearly as diffident as it has been in the past. "I figure I up and owe you some motherfuckin' favors, after last night."

You reach out and pat him on the shoulder. "Hey," you say, "don't worry. I think I get it now."

He blinks at you. "You do?" 

"Well, yeah! All that shit you went through? Sometimes you just feel like you gotta smash things up, especially when I'm not here to help out. Right?"

"I guess," he says, sounding confused. "I just... up and get mad, sometimes. It's like there's somebody else all up in here -"

"Yeah, well, I'm okay with that! I just need to give that somebody else something that he can take a few punches at without having to worry about it." You grab one of his shirts, and a pair of sunshades, and pass them over to him. "It's kinda bright out there today, so you'd better put these on." 

"If you say so," he says, taking them from you. "Wouldn't want a brother to go motherfucking blind."

"Exactly!" you agree. Of course, you're pretty sure it's nowhere near bright enough out there for him to go blind, but as much as they hate even the tiniest shred of what sunshine you still get, you figure it's better to be safe. Maybe the brightness means that the scientists are making progress, you think, and someday there really will be blue skies again - but that's not going to be for years, if it happens at all. You've been keeping a close eye on that research. 

He follows you out without argument, properly protected, and you lead him to where the van is sitting - the street's still mostly empty, and the few people who are passing by don't look at him with too much disdain, which is good. You'd been worried about how this neighborhood would react to having a pet troll on their street, and so far nothing's happened. 

You open the back of the minivan, revealing the spoils of your morning thrifting expedition - a garish, red-and-blue nightmare of old-fashioned upholstery, a couch that probably hadn't been anything close to comfortable when it had first been made and was well on its way to sliding down into utterly hideous. Gamzee blinks groggily at it. "Um," he says, and really, you're not sure there's much more to say on the matter.

"Yeah, that's what _I_ said," you answer cheerily. "I saw that this morning, and I said, 'Well, if there's anything that deserves to be torn to shreds and made into something _much_ cooler, it's that couch."

Gamzee reaches out for it. "Fuck," he says, and you're pretty sure at that point that he hasn't heard a word of what you just said. "It's... beautiful. It's so motherfucking _beautiful._ " 

"It is?" you ask, taken aback. This might not be good.

"Yeah," he says, almost tenderly. "Look at these motherfucking flowers, man. I wanna tear these flowers off and make 'em into a motherfuckin' robe and wear it all the goddamned time." 

"Oh. Um. Well, it's yours now! You can totally do that if you want!" 

"Really?" he says, looking at you like a kid who's just seen the pony he wanted for his birthday for his entire life. "You mean it?" 

"Of course! You can do whatever you want with it. All you have to do is help me get it into your room." 

He laughs. "No problem, sister. No motherfucking problem at all."

\---

The couch is completely whole when you leave for another uneventful day at work - Gamzee is just staring at it, still enraptured with wonder at its apparent beauty. No accounting for tastes, you figure. By the time you get home, the couch has not even a shred of fabric left clinging to its frame. There are pieces of it strewn around everywhere, fluff and bits of wooden frame and springs, and Gamzee's wrapped up in the hideous upholstery and sitting around with the biggest grin on his face you've seen since the day you brought him home. 

"So beautiful," he says when he sees you come in, all wrapped up in his new robe. "So motherfuckin' beautiful."

You can't help but grin. "So what are you going to do with the rest of the sofa?"

"Huh," he says, looking back at it. "I gotta say, haven't really given it a motherfuckin' thought."

"Well, you say," I have an idea. Here, hand me those springs."

It takes some time - it's been a while since you've done anything like this! But you've got plenty of material to work with, and before too long you've managed to pile the stuffing in the middle and clap enough of boards and springs around you to make a passable fort. It's not bad, you think, surveying your work - not the greatest, but you've got time to practice. 

"Mmmm," Gamzee says as he's lounging around, resting on the fluff. "Pretty motherfucking sweet, I gotta say."

"Yeah," you answer. "I haven't done anything like this in years."

The two of you spend a long time just curled up together in your sofa-fort - there's not much room, so the two of you have to cozy up, and his horns tend to stick out of the doorway. It's cozy, though. Maybe you can get some more _materials_ later, make a bigger one, if you two really want the room.

"It's the weirdest motherfuckin' thing," Gamzee says, in that odd humming way, the one she hadn't heard in a long time. "I know you always keep comin' back, but I think t'day was the first time I really up and believed it."

"Well, you'd better keep believing it, because I'm gonna keep coming back," you say. "You're not getting rid of _me_ anytime soon."

"I sure motherfuckin' hope that's so." He turns to stare up at what little ceiling the fort has, chewing on his lower lip with those sharp, sharp teeth for a couple of seconds. "You mind if I tell you somethin'? Somethin' that's... kinda heavy shit?"

"Anything you want, hon." 

"Well... when I was back at the Society last, 'fore I met you, they said I'd have to think about signing the Contract soon."

The Contract? You remember seeing something about it in that paperwork, but you're not sure exactly what it was. You've really gotta finish reading that stuff! "Sounds like a big deal," you say.

"Decidin' what to do about the rest of my motherfuckin' life?" He makes a small sound in the back of his throat. "Yeah. I'd say that's a pretty big deal." 

Oh. "You thought about it?" you ask, reaching for his hand.

He takes it, squeezing it a bit. "Well," he said, "back then I remember thinkin', I might as well up and join my little miracle, y'know? I mean, I don't remember much, my head was all fuzzy from the shit that guy was givin' me, or whatever. But I thought that maybe if I just said I didn't wanna be studied, they'd up and put me down, and... well, maybe then a miracle would happen, and he an' I could finally be together again."

"Gamzee," you say, feeling that knot in the pit of your stomach again. "You can't mean that -"

"Yeah," he interrupts. His voice is darker, this time. "Yeah, I meant it. I missed that kid. Fuck, I still miss 'm. Figured I'd make up my mind when my head was clearer, but I pretty much meant it as much as I could mean anything then."

"Oh, Gamzee," you say, and pull him into a big hug. "I'm glad I found you before you could _do_ that. I mean, if I hadn't found you...."

"Awww, don't you up and worry yourself, now," he says, squeezing you back, making a little rumbling sound somewhere in his chest. "I'll tell you something right now - if stickin' around means getting to live with a sweet little sister like you, I might stick around a little longer."

You kiss him on the forehead, not sure how to express how warm and fuzzy and _good_ him saying that makes you feel. "I hope so, Gamz," you say. "I really, really do."

As soon as he goes to sleep, you promise yourself, you're going to read the rest of that stuff. Or as much as you can stand before you pass out, anyway. You've got a lot to learn about how to be a good troll owner. 

You're not too worried, though. Roxy Lalonde is _nothing_ if not a fast learner.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't part of [Petstuck](http://archiveofourown.org/series/17587) (which you should go check out if you haven't already, seriously,) but it was inspired by the same prompt on Bucketlist, hence the similarities. The idea's too firmly stuck in my head not to keep working on it, though. There are going to be some similarities to canon, and some things are going to be a bit different - I'm really just playing this one by ear.


End file.
